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13 April 2010

Dance like an Egyptian - Aswan, Egypt [Day Two]

I awoke to the soothing sound of the clanking train carriage's at about 7am, about 90 minutes out of Aswan. Which I thought was fairly decent, the train ride went better than I thought it would - minus the cup debacle (inside joke).

We arrived to our hotel at about 9am. Being so early we couldn't check in - no problem though, as they showed us to the EPIC POOL. So we spent the morning drinking beer, swimming, lazing in the sun and enjoying the view of the Nile. The crazy locals provided plenty of entertainment - check out how many people they had on the boat in the below photo. Its almost taking on water!
After a couple of hours we decided to head out and grab some lunch. We found this awesome place with a pontoon sitting out in the Nile. I ordered the pigeon, but apparently it was going to take an hour to prepare. I didn't really understand, its quite a small bird, so we decided they must have had to catch it first. I ended up ordering the fish, Egyptian style. And it was so, so good! Honestly some of the best fish I have ever tasted.

Later that afternoon we wandered over to check out the markets. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before - mainly due to the people. There are guys standing outside their shops who say absolutely anything to get you inside. "Whatever you need, I have it, just come with me my friend". Andy and I were with two American girls, Megan and Theresa, and we were constantly being asked "How many camels?" i.e. to buy the girls. We also kept hearing "Aussi, Aussi, Aussi"... I guess they get a lot of Aussi tourists and they are just playing the odds.

Some of the items for sale were amazing - the spices were especially good. They have them piled high, and they all smell sooo good. We were warned by our guide that you have to haggle a lot to get a fair price, and that often they start at five times over what you can get it for. I didn't buy anything, but Andy bought a hat (similar to a turbin). He haggled for a while and got it for what we thought was a reasonable price. Down the road he decided he would haggle for another one just for fun. Turns out he paid a bit much, as he got the guy down to about one third what he paid. Understandably the guy wasn't too happy when he said he didn't want it...

We made our way back to check in to our rooms - this place was so nice. Take a look at the view out our window.

The rest of the afternoon was spent enjoying the sun by the pool. That evening we jumped on a boat and cruised out to an island for a Nubian dinner. The dinner was really good, and afterwards we were lead outside for a performance. It was very cool - lots of drums, singing, and they got everyone up dancing. Some of it was really funny - see the videos.

The following morning our wake up call was 2:30am! So we decided to call it a night and get some sleep.